The "Fantastic People" There are Not Part of My Base. The president says the earliest he can travel to the hurricane-ravaged U.S. territory is next Tuesday. [MORE]

From [HERE] President Trump finally broke his silence on the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico this week with a series of tweets in which he appeared to blame the island for its own misfortune.

“Texas & Florida [which suffered damage during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma] are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble,” he tweeted on Monday night. “It’s [sic] old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities – and doing well.”

By Tuesday morning, Trump appeared to have shifted gears, thanking San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz for her reported gratitude in the face of limited aid.

“Thank you to Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor of San Juan, for your kind words on FEMA etc. We are working hard. Much food and water there/on way,” he wrote.

Trump’s response came after several days of silence on the matter; Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory without full voting rights, is home to some 3.4 million U.S. citizens. Battered by Hurricane Maria last week, the island has since been plunged into darkness, with 85 percent of power lines down and residents unable to find cellular reception or, in many areas, potable water. At least 15 people have died, with many more unaccounted for and scores of residents stranded across the island.

While federal emergency funds have been activated for the island and the Army Reserve and National Guard have deployed some 4,000 and 1,600 members respectively, Puerto Rican officials have been begging for an increase in aid. Current relief efforts simply aren’t enough, they say.

“We still need some more help. This is clearly a critical disaster in Puerto Rico,” Governor Ricardo Rosselló told the Washington Post Sunday night. “It can’t be minimized and we can’t start overlooking us now that the storm passed, because the danger lurks.”

Despite the ongoing devastation, up until Monday night, Trump’s attention seemed to be elsewhere. Over the weekend, the president tweeted extensively about the NFL, targeting a protest initiated last year by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality. The president devoted much of his weekend to criticizing Kaepernick’s actions — most notably calling anyone who chose to join the protest a “son of a bitch” — and choosing not to weigh in on the situation in Puerto Rico.

That clear display of priorities hasn’t gone over well with Puerto Ricans, many of whom are still unable to access basic necessities after Maria. The heavily indebted island has long been forced to rely on the much wealthier mainland to provide aid and assistance, as all its attempts at statehood have been ignored by Congress. That dependency has left many Puerto Ricans feeling helpless and skeptical in the face of disaster.

“The U.S. has never really given us the attention it gives the states,” college student Natalia Porrata told Bloomberg. “And I don’t think this will be any different.” With her municipality destroyed, Porrata said she worried the mainland’s apathy would persist despite the island’s dire circumstances.

U.S. airline companies also drew residents’ ire after several carriers advertised one-way ticket prices well over $1,000, leaving many passengers stranded. Rafael Juliá Jr., whose elderly father is battling cancer on the island and relies on a respirator, expressed outrage over the ticket debacle in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

“I cannot believe how a company can do that to people who are suffering,” Juliá said. “I have no words in English to express how angry I am.”

Some have also directed their frustrations at Puerto Rican officials. “This is historic,” Alfred Rodrigo Maldorado told NPR of the storm. “But what’s really historic is the absence of our government.”

Officials themselves appear focused on obtaining aid, though they admit there were problems lingering long before the hurricane made landfall. Still, when asked about Trump’s critical tweets on Tuesday, Governor Rosselló emphasized the island’s need for help and pushed focus back to his people.

“A lot of those things are true,” said Rosselló, acknowledging Trump’s comments about Puerto Rico’s debt. “There’s collapsed infrastructure, energy grid that was old, not well-maintained. Now it’s a matter of logistics, and it’s a matter of executing and doing it in a proper and safe way so that people can get the resources.”

San Juan’s mayor, Yulin, was also pointed in her remarks. “You don’t put debt above people — you put people above debt,” she said. “Let’s deal with the two issues in a separate way, because there is a humanitarian crisis.”

“It’s very, very tough because it’s an island,” the president said, referring to the limited relief efforts. “The difference is this is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean — and it’s a big ocean, a really, really big ocean.”

“Puerto Rico is very important to me,” Trump added. “The people are fantastic. I grew up in New York so I know many Puerto Rican people.”

From [HERE] and [MORE] Megyn Kelly -- the former Fox News host who NBC hoped would become the latest star in the network’s firmament -- opened the premiere episode of her new morning talk show, Megyn Kelly Today, by laughing at the idea that she might devote time to her sometimes foe President Donald Trump’s latest remarks. “The truth is, I am kind of done with politics for now,” she told a live studio audience with a smile.

During the hour that followed, Kelly offered up a panoply of typical morning show fare -- a synergistic but wooden sit-down with the stars of Will and Grace, returning to the network’s airwaves this week; a soft-focus piece on a Chicago nun who is “cleaning up her streets”; and Oprah-esque “surprises” for members of the audience, for her guests, and for Kelly herself. Along the way, Kelly sought to wash away her past work and rebrand herself as a joyful and upbeat bringer of hope.

Kelly devoted much of her opening monologue to crafting an origin story, trying to connect with her morning show audience by describing her upbringing, her parents, the death of her father, and her career. “I went on to become a TV anchor. And that was good, until it wasn't,” she explained. “So much division. So much outrage. And I wasn't happy,” she said of the 2016 presidential election. “For years I had dreamed of hosting a more uplifting show,” Kelly added. She said the dream was answered by NBC, which allowed her to host the new morning show, “whose mission would be to deliver hope and optimism and inspiration and empowerment.”

This is solid gold dogshit. Kelly spent years at Fox News, a network built on the division and outrage she now decries. And her raw talent for playing on the racial anxieties and resentments of her audience helped make her a Fox star.

After Keith Lamont Scott was shot by a police officer in 2016, Kelly hosted a discussion on her show about his unrelated criminal record. In the fall of 2016, Keith Lamont Scott was shot by a police officer in North Carolina. In the wake of protests about the death of another unarmed black man, Kelly hosted an entire segment devoted to reporting on Scott’s criminal record, which was unrelated to his death. [Media Matters, 9/28/16; NBC News, 11/30/16]

On The Kelly File, Kelly and Mark Fuhrman agreed that black people’s grievances with police are overblown. In a July 2016 discussion on The Kelly File with former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Mark Fuhrman (who was revealed to have repeatedly used the N-word on duty during the O.J. Simpson trial), Kelly and Fuhrman agreed that black protesters’ grievances with police officers are overblown, and that “a lot of these folks paint with a very big brush” based on a “couple of shootings.” [Fox News, The Kelly File, 7/8/16]

Kelly questioned why Philando Castile’s girlfriend didn’t do more to help him. In another July 2016 segment of The Kelly File, Kelly questioned the actions of Philando Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was seated in a car next to Castile and filmed the aftermath of his shooting by police in Minnesota. A guest reminded Kelly that Reynolds was in fact held at gunpoint by an officer at the time. The night before, Kelly had hosted Fuhrman to comment on the death of Alton Sterling at the hands of a police officer in Louisiana. Fuhrman concluded on the show that Sterling “has to take responsibility” for his own death. [Fox News, The Kelly File, 7/7/16, 7/6/16]

Kelly questioned whether it was “appropriate” for a black protester to glare at a cop during a peaceful protest. On the November 24, 2015, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly denounced a young African-American protester photographed glaring at a police officer during a peaceful protest in Chicago following the announcement of charges against a police officer for the first-degree murder of an African-American teen. When guest Richard Fowler questioned why the young man’s actions were a problem, Kelly commented that it was “not a question of what [the protester’s] constitutional rights are. It’s a question of what’s appropriate.” [Fox News, The Kelly File, 11/24/15]

Kelly questioned whether education, marriage, and employment are “valued in the black communities.” During The Kelly File’s September 4, 2015, “Black Lives Matter Protests” special, Kelly questioned whether education, marriage, and employment are “valued in the black communities, in the inner cities.” Kelly also bemoaned the “anti-cop,” “them versus us” culture where “it’s cool” to “be somebody who doesn’t necessarily prize being there for your family.” [Fox News, The Kelly File, 9/4/15]

Kelly on incident where police officer violently manhandled a black teen: "The girl was no saint either." On the June 8, 2015, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly questioned whether a white Texas police officer's excessive use of force while arresting a 14-year-old black girl at a pool party was a "race thing,” asking, “What is the evidence that it is a race thing, as opposed to excessive force thing?" Later, despite calling the police officer’s takedown “brutal,” Kelly partially faulted the 14-year-old, claiming, "The girl was no saint, either." [Fox News, The Kelly File, 6/8/15]

Kelly on Sandra Bland's arrest: "Even if you know the cop is in the wrong, comply and complain later." On the July 23, 2015, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly and Fox regular (and now potential Trump Department of Homeland Security official) David Clarke found fault with black motorist Sandra Bland's response to the white police officer who pulled her over, with Kelly saying, "Even if you know the cop is in the wrong, comply and complain later." [Fox News, The Kelly File, 7/23/15]

Kelly warned that Obama planned to force communities that are "too white [and] too privileged" to embrace diversity. On the June 11, 2015, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly warned that the Obama administration plans to force "too white [and] too privileged" communities to embrace diversity "whether the communities want it or not":

MEGYN KELLY (HOST): They don't want, quote, “unequal neighborhoods.” Unequal neighborhoods. They think too many communities are too white, too privileged, with too many big McMansions. And they want to diversify the communities whether the communities want it or not. [Fox News, The Kelly File, 6/11/15]

Kelly claimed racist emails circulate at most companies in an attempt to downplay DOJ's Ferguson report. During the March 9, 2015, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly downplayed a Department of Justice (DOJ) report that found racial bias and stereotyping in the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri. Kelly said it is unfair to "tar the entire organization" as racist because "there are very few companies in America" where "you won't find any racist emails [or] any inappropriate comments." [Media Matters, 3/10/15]

Kelly: "I'd like to know the proof" that the police murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner had “anything to do with race.” On the December 4, 2014, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly discussed nationwide protests in the wake of the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown with National Urban League president Marc Morial, asking several times for "evidence" that the deaths of Garner and Brown had "anything to do with race”:

MEGYN KELLY (HOST): All right. So, let's start with this, what is the evidence that what happened to Eric Garner and what happened to Michael Brown has anything to do with race?

[…]

KELLY: I get that. You're entitled to your opinion on that and to push for an additional investigation. And that's absolutely your right. But to say that this is a racist situation as Al Sharpton has suggested, as Mayor de Blasio has suggested, as many others have suggested, requires evidence.

MARC MORIAL: What would it take for you to acknowledge -- what would it take for you to acknowledge that race is an issue? Maybe you don't want to acknowledge that race is an issue.

KELLY: I'd like to know the proof. [Fox News, The Kelly File, 12/4/14]

Kelly: "Santa just is white" and "just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change." During the December 11, 2013, edition of The Kelly File, Kelly infamously insisted that Jesus and Santa Claus were "white," brushing past then-Fox host Jedediah Bila's suggestion that a non-white Santa Claus figure makes non-white kids feel included in holiday celebrations. Kelly continued, “Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change,” adding, “Jesus was a white man too.” [Fox News, The Kelly File, 12/11/13]

Kelly devoted 45 segments over two weeks to pushing a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration was intentionally allowing voter intimidation. During the summer of 2010, Kelly repeatedly tried to scandalize an investigation about a New Black Panther Party member who stood outside a polling station on Election Day 2008, allegedly intimidating voters. Kelly devoted 45 segments, totaling more than 3.5 hours, to the investigation in a two-week time frame. Kelly claimed that her sources would shed light on the Obama administration's "decision to not pursue serious charges against members of the New Black Panther Party" and said that "politics and race" were potentially to blame. [Media Matters, 6/30/10, 7/16/10, 7/22/10]

For more on Kelly’s history of race-baiting comments, click here and here.

"Your soldiers are not warriors any longer, they are just servants.""The whole process of the military is to destroy intelligence because an intelligent person will not be able to kill. And an intelligent person will ask a thousand and one questions before killing somebody for no reason at all."

Back in the day the games just started. But after 9/11 elite whites and their media began to directly sell us patriotism and force showing the national anthem.

Rather than organic, wholesome expressions of patriotism — the kind Trump has claimed NFL players are disrespectfully protesting — the tradition of players standing for the national anthem is a recent tradition that may have coincided with a marketing ploy meant to sell cheap, manufactured nationalism.

As recently as 2015, the Department of Defense was doling out millions to the NFL for such things as military flyovers, flag unfurlings, emotional color guard ceremonies, enlistment campaigns, and — interestingly enough — national anthem performances. Additionally, according to Vice, the NFL’s policy on players standing for the national anthem also changed in 2009, with athletes “encouraged” thereafter to participate. Prior to that, teams were not given any specific instructions on the matter; some chose to remain in the locker room until after opening ceremonies were completed. (It’s unclear whether the policy change was implemented as a direct result of any Defense Department contracts.)

In 2015, Arizona Sens. Jeff Flake (R) and John McCain (R) revealed in a joint oversight report that nearly $5.4 million in taxpayer dollars had been paid out to 14 NFL teams between 2011 and 2014 to honor service members and put on elaborate, “patriotic salutes” to the military. Overall, they reported, “these displays of paid patriotism [were] included within the $6.8 million that the Department of Defense (DOD) [had] spent on sports marketing contracts since fiscal year 2012.” [MORE]

According to Dr. Blynd in FUNKTIONARY:

Patriotism: the degree of voluntary servitude evinced.2) the result of one successful treason - until the next one is necessary. 3) re-inforced mindless symbolic conformism. (See U.S. citizen, Treason, USA, Corporate State, Nation, U.S. Senate, Country, Congress, Constitution & Human Resources).

Pledge of Allegiance- (to the Federal Flag)—did not exist until 1892. The pledge of allegiance was written by a flag manufacturer and merchant, Francis Bellamy, ostensibly for a boy's magazine entitled "'The Youth's Companion," as part of a promotion (to sell his wares) celebrating the fictitious Pirate's Day (Columbus Day). Next time someone wants you to pledge allegiance to the flag, better think about the God-given rights you are waiving instead of watching the flag waving. (See: National Flag, Citizen of the United States. Rights, Congress, Slavery, US. Citizen, Allegiance & Citizens)

soldiers - tools (living human resources—walking fodder); corporate mercenaries used by the legistraitors, wordsymthologists, journalists, and politicians to impose the will of their Corporate masters and imperialistic soothsayers (i.e., Crimethlnc.). "It is impossible to give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him." ~H.D. Thoreau. Anyone overstanding the real cost of war (not counting the costs of perpetrating it) and the fictitious nature of Corporate State and the real benefactors behind the scenes—has to become a conscientious objector or an enemy outpost in one's own (controlled by another) mind. The ideologues of vanity manipulate the power-hungry purveyors of profit-motive insanity into perpetrating crimes against humanity. (See: GI Bill, Citizen DUPE, CABS, Class, Mass & Souldier)

From [HERE] A new poll released Monday by Latino Victory Project, a Democratic group, shows Latinos feel increased concern about racism and that President Donald Trump is doing a worse job than they expected.

Results from the poll, conducted by Latino Decisions, show that when asked about the largest concerns facing the Latino community, race and race relations ranked second under immigration. While 53 percent of respondents mentioned immigration when asked to give one or two most important issues, 25 percent said so of race and race relations.

"This is the first time we’ve seen such a high marks ... for race and race relations," said Latino Decisions pollster Matt Baretto.

The results also show that 67 percent of Latinos disapprove of the job Trump is doing. By comparison, the latest polling numbers compiled by the website FiveThirtyEight shows that 54 percent of all adults in the country disapprove of Trump’s job in office.

From [DPIC] A white Arapahoe County judge has denied the appeal of Black death-row prisoner Sir Mario Owens, despite finding that white prosecutors withheld evidence and failed to disclose money, gifts, and favors they provided informants in exchange for their testimony.

In a 1,343-page Order and Opinion issued on September 14, Senior Judge Christopher Munch, racist suspect in photo, found that county prosecutors had presented false evidence from two of their most critical witnesses and unconstitutionally withheld more than 20 separate pieces of evidence that could have helped the defense challenge the testimony of seven prosecution witnesses, but said a defendant "must establish more than helpfulness to sustain a claim of constitutional error."

The ruling followed the controversial removal from the case of Senior Judge Gerald Rafferty, as the judge was preparing his decision after having presided over the case for more than a decade. Rafferty had ordered the prosecution to produce hundreds of pages of records and granted 37 weeks of hearings on what he had characterized as prosecutors’ “deliberate choice” to withhold evidence from the defense.

Owens was sentenced to death in June 2008 for the 2005 shooting death of Javad Marshall-Fields (the son of a Colarado state representative) and Fields's fiancé, Vivian Wolfe. A co-defendant, Robert Ray, was separately tried and sentenced to death.

The case against Owens was largely circumstantial. As described by news reports in The Colorado Independent, there was "no definitive physical evidence, no confession, and no eyewitnesses who identified Owens in a case prosecutors built almost entirely on the testimony of informant witnesses to whom the DA’s office gave plea bargains, funds, or both in return for their cooperation against Owens."

Owens alleged that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defense that they had secured the testimony of cooperating informants by making thousands of dollars of cash payments and providing undisclosed favors in unrelated criminal cases. The Denver Post reported that one witness had been "promised and later given a district attorney’s office car" and another "received $3,400 in benefits, including cash for Christmas presents in the months prior to testifying on behalf of the prosecution." The Colorado Independent's review of court records reported that "one of the main witnesses [had been] threatened with being charged for the murders Owens was accused of and with receiving two life sentences" if he didn’t cooperate. Another witness had been granted an undisclosed suspended jail sentence conditioned upon cooperating with prosecutors in Owens’s case.

"People working for the prosecution would appear at informant witnesses’ court hearings and ask for lesser sentences on the condition that they testify against Owens," the paper wrote, and "informants who had been convicted of crimes were allowed to violate probation and commit future crimes without consequences as long as they cooperated." Owens's appeal has attracted attention because it was the first in Colorado's "unitary review" process that had been billed as speeding up capital appeals. Instead, it has substantially increased the length of appeals. It also raised questions of transparency because of the extraordinary levels of secrecy throughout the proceedings. Court files were sealed and a gag order prevented the parties from speaking about the case for seven years, until the order was lifted in 2013. Numerous case exhibits remain under seal. Owens's lawyers issued a written statement saying “We disagree with the court’s conclusion that none of this matters and can be tolerated in Colorado in any case, never mind a capital one. This is a sad day for ... the Colorado criminal justice system.”

Right to Speedy Verdict from Mindless Racist Suspects in Racist System. From [HERE] and [HERE] Kharon Davis spent a decade in jail awaiting trial. On Friday, an all white jury in this southern Alabama town deliberated less than three hours before finding him guilty in the fatal shooting of Peter Dwayne Reaves.

In a racially charged case raising questions of prosecutorial overcharging, inadequate representation, and questionable jury practices, Davis, charged with capital murder had been imprisoned for 10 years without trial.

Mr. Davis, 33, is black, but the jury was all white, in a county with a long history of striking blacks from juries. Jury selection took place on Monday and Tuesday, and Mr. Davis’s lawyers complained to the judge about the racial makeup of the jury, unsuccessfully arguing that a new pool be assembled.

Mr. Davis was one of three men charged in Mr. Reaves’s death. One of the others, Lorenzo Stacey, was acquitted. The third, Kevin Bernard McCloud, took a plea bargain in which he agreed to plead guilty and testify against Mr. Davis, a childhood friend, if prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. He is serving a 99-year sentence.

The three men had gone to Mr. Reaves’s apartment on a night in June 2007 looking to buy marijuana. But the deal quickly turned into a shooting. Mr. McCloud was wounded and Mr. Reaves was killed.

The prosecution was forced to make a largely circumstantial case against Mr. Davis, who they said fired the gun. None of Mr. Davis’s DNA was found in Mr. Reaves’s home, where the shooting took place. There were no fingerprints on the stolen 9-millimeter handgun that was used in the murder. And there were no witnesses who saw Mr. Davis shoot Mr. Reaves.

What’s more, extensive delays can erode any case, as memories falter and witnesses disappear or die. In this case, two key witnesses for the prosecution, including Mr. McCloud, changed their stories.

They stunned the courtroom by testifying that they had lied years ago to authorities about the case.

One, Larry Thompson, appeared on Thursday in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg chains. He is serving a 20-year sentence for an unrelated crime. After briefly testifying, he abruptly refused to continue, saying he feared for his life.

Mr. Thompson was a child at the time of Mr. Reaves’s death, and was supposed to help bolster the prosecution’s theory that the men had planned to rob Mr. Reaves from the beginning.

In the 2009 trial of Mr. Stacey, Mr. Thompson testified that he saw three men wrestling with Mr. Reaves, and that they pulled him back into the apartment after he tried to flee. He also testified that he heard Mr. Reaves yelling, “You are killing me! You are killing me!” after he heard the gunshots.

From [WashPost] The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics — also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.

The nature and detail of these ads have troubled investigators at Facebook, on Capitol Hill and at the Justice Department, say people familiar with the advertisements, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share matters still under investigation.

The House and Senate intelligence committees plan to begin reviewing the Facebook ads in coming weeks as they attempt to untangle the operation and other matters related to Russia’s bid to help elect Donald Trump president in 2016.

“Their aim was to sow chaos,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In many ­cases, it was more about voter suppression rather than increasing turnout.”

From [HERE] A prominent civil rights attorney is accusing AT&T of discriminating against low-income minority communities within Detroit in a complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday.

The complaint is the second in as many months from Daryl Parks, a lawyer known for having represented the family of Trayvon Martin after the black 17-year-old was killed by George Zimmerman in 2012. Last month, Parks filed a similar complaint against AT&T on behalf of Cleveland residents.

Both filings accuse the telecommunications giant of withholding quality internet service from minority neighborhoods with high poverty rates.

The Monday complaint alleges that AT&T is responsible for a “pattern of long-term, systematic failure to invest in the infrastructure required to provide equitable, mainstream Internet access to residents of the central city (compared to the suburbs) and to lower-income city neighborhoods.”

Asked for comment, an AT&T spokesman referred to a statement the company put out in response to the August complaint.

“We do not redline,” Joan Marsh, AT&T’s chief regulatory and external affairs officer, said in the statement. “Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is unparalleled. Our investment decisions are based on the cost of deployment and demand for our services and are of course fully compliant with the requirements of the Communications Act. We will vigorously defend the complaint filed today.”

The Cleveland complaint relied on a March study conducted by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and Connect Your Community, which detailed how the city’s poorer residents lack access to download speeds that are widely available to residents in more affluent nearby suburbs.

The complaint filed on Monday cited a similar analysis of the Detroit area. It found that 41 percent of the census blocks within the city had access to the highest tiers of fiber internet technologies compared with 81 percent of the remaining census blocks in Wayne County.

The average poverty rate in the census blocks with the highest internet speeds is 5.5 percent while the county average is 25.5 percent, the study found.

Parks requested that the FCC conduct an investigation into the allegations and promised to keep the pressure on AT&T.

"Unfortunately, AT&T’s arrogance and blatant disregard for low-income minority communities do not end with Detroit or Cleveland,” Parks said in a statement. “We are seeing a very discouraging pattern across the country. There are more cities, states and complainants to come."

From [wNYC] The NYPD is increasingly turning to DNA to help solve crimes. And it's worked: The science has helped develop investigative leads and given prosecutors ammunition in court. But as the police have gotten more aggressive about collecting genetic material, they've quietly amassed a giant database of DNA profiles without any laws and little oversight over how they can use it.

As the science advances and the size of the databases grows, civil-liberties groups, defense attorneys and advocates are ringing alarm bells. WNYC and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom focused on guns in America, took a look at the growth of law enforcement DNA databases. Click on the audio above to hear our story, and click here to read the print article, co-published with The Daily News.

Trump had already jumped on this idiotic racist bandwagon. He is in major distract mode now.

What on earth is radical about protesting against the use of excessive force and deprivation of Constitutional rights by police officers against Blacks & Latinos? What possibly could be radical about protesting against conduct that is already illegal? Having something to say about a public servant unlawfully stopping, detaining and murdering people based on skin color is not radical speech. It is normal. Put the black power fist down. This is whitenology. Such "protest" only seeks to uphold the status quo, uphold the equal application of laws. Elite racists have radicalized common sense! They are attempting to make Blacks & Latinos believe that what is actually conservative and common sense is radical thought & conduct. Therefore, we reject common sense when we reject "the radical" or what is "radical" to do. So, conformist or obedient Blacks & Latinos will not pursue things that anyone else with common sense would pursue- because to do so would be revolutionary. lol

From [HERE] Every day, and in countless and unexpected ways, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, finds new ways to divide and demoralize his country and undermine the national interest. On Tuesday, he ranted from the lectern of the U.N. General Assembly about “Rocket Man” and the possibility of levelling North Korea. Now he has followed with an equally unhinged domestic performance at a rally, on Friday evening, in Huntsville, Alabama, where he set out to make African-American athletes the focus of national contempt.

In the midst of an eighty-minute speech intended to heighten the reëlection prospects of Senator Luther Johnson Strange III, Trump turned his attention to N.F.L. players, including the former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and asked a mainly white crowd if “people like yourselves” agreed with his anger at “those people,” players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest racism.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’ ” Trump continued. “You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in the country.”

“People like yourselves.” “Those people.” “Son of a bitch.” This was the same sort of racial signalling that followed the Fascist and white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is no longer a matter of “dog whistling.” This is a form of racial demagoguery broadcast at the volume of a klaxon. There is no need for Steve Bannon’s behind-the-scenes scriptwriting. Trump, who is desperate to distract his base from his myriad failures of policy, from health care to immigration, is perfectly capable of devising his racist rhetoric all on his own.

In these performances, Trump is making clear his moral priorities. He is infinitely more offended by the sight of a black ballplayer quietly, peacefully protesting racism in the United States than he is by racism itself. Which, at this point, should come as no surprise to any but the willfully obtuse. Trump, who began his real-estate career with a series of discriminatory housing deals in New York City, and his political career with a racist calumny against Barack Obama, has repeatedly defined his Presidency with a rhetoric that signals solidarity to resentful souls who see the Other as the singular cause of their troubles. Trump stokes a bilious disdain for every African-American who dares raise a voice to protest the injustices of this country.

And lest there be any doubt about his intentions or allegiances, Trump tweeted this afternoon, “If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, you’re fired. Find something else to do.”

In addition to urging the N.F.L.’s owners to fire any politically impertinent players, Trump also disinvited the N.B.A. champions, the Golden State Warriors, from visiting the White House after one of the team’s stars, Stephen Curry, voiced hesitation about meeting with the President.

From [HERE] Racist suspect New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Sunday said he was “deeply disappointed” in President Trump’s “tone” when he criticized NFL players who kneel during the national anthem. “There is no greater unifier in this country than sports, and unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics,” Kraft said, praising his players and applauding efforts to “peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel it most impactful.” The statement is notable because Kraft supported Trump and has been friendly with him for years. [MORE]

Racist idiot Trump is the opposite of what Neely Fuller refers to as the "refinement of the racism/white supremacy system." Racism is a power group dynamic, a white over Black system of vast unequal power. Sophisticated racists can exercise greater power us when we are manipulated, deceived and/or consensually participate in the arrangement. When our chains are visible the masters are less efficient. Dr. Amos Wilson describes different types of power as follows;

"Power, whether as "power to" or "power over," manifests itself in a variety of forms or types. We shall briefly define certain types or forms of power and their relevance to White racist domination and exploitation of Blacks and to the necessity of Blacks to develop the power to end such domination and exploitation.

Force as Power

Power as force involves the exercise of biological and physical means to prevent another person or group from doing what he or it prefers to do or "to get something to happen to the [person or group] that [he or it] would prefer it did not" (Wartenberg). The force utilized may involve "the infliction of bodily pain or injury including the destruction of life itself, and the frustration of basic biological needs."6 It may also involve the construction of human and physical obstacles to constrain or restrict the freedom and range of movement of another person or group.

Force may be utilized instrumentally rather than directly, to achieve certain ends. The instrumental use of force may involve its use to inhibit or destroy another person's or group's ability to develop and mobilize his or its human and material resources which might be used against the interests of the powers-that-be. The strategic and tactical purpose of instrumental force is to limit or eliminate the subordinate individual's or group's capacity to act in certain ways. Instrumental force may be used to establish in the mind of the subordinate person or group the power holder's capability and willingness to use force as an instrument of punishment for non-compliant behavior on his or its part. It also may be used as a means of motivating the non-complying party to return to or to re-establish a pre-existing power relation.

Force, per se, rather than being utilized as the primary and exclusive means of exerting power over another may serve more to reinforce or "back up" other forms of power relations (to be discussed below). That is, "force, although a reality in many social situations, achieves its full scope by undergirding other types of power" (Wartenberg). In so-called advanced societies like the United States, force is more likely to be applied as the "final persuader or arbiter" when compliance is not attained by other means.

Force as Inefficient Power — In the context of the modern nation-state, the use of force as the primary regulator of social and power relations, as the primary means of achieving the results desired by power-holders is more often than not, inefficient, counter-productive and fraught with onerous complexities and unintended outcomes. It is also often socially, economically and materially costly to exert and maintain. Wrong perceptively notes, as follows:

Force is more effective in preventing or restricting people from acting than in causing them to act in a given way . . . Force can achieve negative effects: the destruction, prevention or limitation of the possibility of action by others. But one cannot forcibly manipulate the limbs and bodies of others in order to achieve complex positive results: the fabrication or construction of something, the operation of a machine, the performance of a physical or mental skill.

Wartenberg further notes:

Force is uneconomic for a number of reasons. In the first place, it / requires that the dominant agent make some physical effort in order/ to keep the subordinate agent from doing what she would otherwise do ... As a result, maintaining the use of force requires a constant expenditure of energy by the dominant agent....

Force is also uneconomic because it inherently occasions resistance ... it is always perceived by those over whom it is used as a hostile presence, an alienating experience that restricts their ability to act. Because of this it engenders a dynamic of resistance in those over whom it is exercised

. . . .[Thus], force by itself is less effective as a means of power than is often assumed [Emphasis added]

The problematics of using unadorned force as the chief instrument of power utilized by a dominant group to achieve complex social-material ends with economic efficiency and the barest minimum of social disruption, motivates that group to develop and apply more subtle forms of power. These will be discussed below. However, at this juncture we should note that current forms of domination of Continental, Caribbean, North, Central and South American Afrikans, respectively, by Europeans, is secured by more subtle and efficient means of political control than by the use of oppressive physical force. Consequently, the "independence" of Afrikan countries and former Caribbean colonies and the social "assimilation" of Afrikan Americans into the mainstream of White America by no means represent the lessening of European and Euro-American domination of or a fundamental change in the nature of European and Afrikan power relations in favor of the Afrikans, as persons so erroneously assume. Quite to the contrary, these historically apparent social/political changes instead represent the increased subtlety and efficiency of European domination of Afrikan peoples. It should be noted that the ability to use physical/militaristic force as the final arbiter of power relations still lies overwhelmingly in the hands of Europeans and EuroAmericans. It is this "force differential" that Afrikans across the Diaspora must in some way resolve, neutralize or frustrate if they are to gain true parity with Europeans and EuroAmericans and indeed gain their liberation from European domination.

From [HERE] and [MORE] The city has reached a settlement with the family of a man who died while in NYPD custody.

According to a published report, court papers show that New York City officials reached a $1.25-million deal with the mother of Ron Singleton. Singleton’s mother filed suit following her son’s death in July, 2014.

Singleton, who was African-American, was taken into police custody after a yellow cab driver flagged down a police officer near St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, police said in a statement. The cab driver claimed the passenger was "acting overly irate and irrational, cursing and screaming and causing alarm," according to the statement.

According to the lawsuit, Singleton was high on PCP and acting erratically when he was put in a ‘protective body wrap’ or makeshift straitjacket by police. The suit alleges that officers kept Singleton — a father of three – face down in the wrap despite requests from EMTs to turn him over for examination.

According to the lawsuit cops threw him to the ground while he was handcuffed. When officers pinned him to the ground, “he is reported to have let out a blood-curdling scream and immediately became limp and unmoving,” the lawsuit says. The officers refused requests from both EMTs and FDNY paramedics to remove Singleton from the wrap and to turn him on his back so he could be evaluated, according to the lawsuit.

The medical examiner ruled Singleton’s death a homicide and said that restraint ‘during excited delirium’ was partly to blame. Singleton suffered from heart disease and was obese.

Singleton’s death came four days before Eric Garner died when a large group of white NYPD officers smothered & pounced on the Black man while he was in a chokehold.

A device that tricks cellphones into sending it their location information and has been used quietly by police and federal agents for years, requires a search warrant before it is turned on. It is the fourth such ruling by either a state appeals court or federal district court, and may end up deciding the issue unless the government takes the case to the U.S. Supreme Court or persuades the city’s highest court to reverse the ruling.

The case against Prince Jones in 2013 involved D.C. police use of a “StingRay” cell-site simulator, which enables law enforcement to pinpoint the location of a cellphone more precisely than a phone company can when triangulating a signal between cell towers or using a phone’s GPS function. Civil liberties advocates say the StingRay, by providing someone’s location to police without court approval, is a violation of an individual’s Fourth Amendment right not to be unreasonably searched. The D.C. Court of Appeals agreed in a 2 to 1 ruling, echoing similar rulings in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and federal district courts in New York City and San Francisco.

“This opinion,” said Nathan F. Wessler of the American Civil Liberties Union, who helped argue the case with the D.C. Public Defender Service, “joins the growing chorus of courts holding that the Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless use of invasive, covert technology to track people’s phones. … We applaud today’s opinion for erecting sensible and strong protections against the government violating people’s privacy in the digital age.” [MORE]

Osho Rajineeshsaid, "If enough rope is given to you, you forget about the prison. For example, these so-called nations -- India, Pakistan, Japan, Germany -- these are all great prisons, but they are so great that you cannot see the boundaries of your prison. Cross the boundaries of your nation and you will see that you were a prisoner. But the prison is big enough; you can move in the prison anywhere you want. But move out of the prison, try to enter another prison, and then you will see the limitation.

These are man-made prisons; big enough so they can give you a false feeling of freedom, but there is no freedom. Unless all nations disappear from the world, the earth will remain a slave, humanity will remain in prisons, small and big. But it makes no difference whether the prison is very big and you cannot see the wall surrounding it.... The walls may be very subtle -- of passports and visas -- the walls may be VERY subtle, you may not see them, but they are there. You are not free to move.

Almost all the constitutions of the world say that the freedom of movement is the birthright of every human being, but it is only written in the books, it is not true. You cannot move freely. If you want to go to Russia, impossible; if you want to enter into China, impossible.

Nations have become such great prisons, and your presidents and your so-called prime ministers are all nothing but jailors. Those who talk about freedom are nothing but policemen. They say they are guarding you for your own safety, but in fact they are prison wardens watching so that you cannot escape.

And there are prisons within prisons like Chinese boxes -- boxes within boxes.... India is a big prison; then there are Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians and Sikhs and Jainas and Buddhists -- now these are small prisons. The Christian can go to the church, he cannot go to the temple; the Hindu can go to the temple, he cannot go to the church. He has been taught and conditioned that the church is not a religious place; the Christian has been told that the church is the only right place to go -- all other religions are false, and all other religions lead you astray. Unless you are a Christian you cannot be saved. And then within Christianity there are Catholics and Protestants, and then among Protestants and Catholics there are smaller and smaller subsects. And prisons become smaller and smaller.

Then there are political prisons: somebody is a communist and somebody is a socialist, and somebody is a capitalist...and so on and so forth. And you are not satisfied even with these: then you make Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs.... Your thirst to be a prisoner is such that you can't simply be a human being. You have to be a Rotarian and you proudly declare, "I am a Rotarian," "I am a Lion." You are not satisfied with being simply a human being, you have to be a Lion. And then there are smaller and smaller confinements.

Rather than getting out of these prison cells, we go on decorating them, we go on making them more and more comfortable. We are living under the law of gravitation, we are living as prisoners. We cannot go against the wind -- our life is gross. Buddha says: Be aware of it: what are you doing with your life? Reconsider, meditate over it, what you have made of yourself." [MORE]

At the Border What are You Waiving or "Consenting" to?

The infographic from [whois], looks at the powers that border security has in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Security agents in each country can legally request access to your digital devices when you cross the border. US agents can request access anywhere within 100 miles of the border. Agents in the UK and Australia do not even need to have a reasonable level of suspicion to request access; so you could easily be subjected to a spot check.

You may be required to provide the password to unlock your device — and to provide access to all your social media accounts. Just refusing could get your device confiscated or arrested -see story below.